


The Night of the Grenade

by Iconodule



Category: Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines (Video Game)
Genre: Allusions to Suicide, Bite-sized chapters for the busy sadness enthusiast, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Heavy use of Dominate, Hurt/Comfort, Past Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-23
Updated: 2018-01-23
Packaged: 2019-03-08 10:28:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 21,539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13456323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Iconodule/pseuds/Iconodule
Summary: As much as he'd like to go with her, Nines Rodriguez needs to let his newest recruit spearhead the L.A. coup alone. She, in turn, is more than capable of handling it herself — or so she hopes. Things have a way of catching up to you in the end, no matter how hard you try.





	1. 4-0

Desdemona Temple did not expect Nines Rodriguez to bend to her Domination so easily. With most resolute people, introducing her will into theirs was like trying to punch through a strong wooden board: possible, but not without strength and precision. With others, they were more like cast iron: it was impossible to break through all at once, but through repeated contact, like water dripping on the metal, their mind would become brittle.

It seemed like that was going to be the way of it at first, but then he relaxed with a tiny exhale. It was like being enfolded in warm blankets. _The poor man must be exhausted_ , she thought.

“Rest...rest does sound good. You’re probably right, kid, I don’t know about fighting so soon,” he mumbled in a hoarse voice. The burns and the laceration that stretched over his eye to his mouth did not allow him to talk clearly.

“Of course I’m right. And it’s ‘Desdemona,’ I keep telling you,” she said, harsher than she intended. “Please.” A touch gentler.

“The Anarchs will need their leader if they’re to take back territory. It will take too long for me to heal to follow you,” he said, emotionless. Her victims didn’t usually repeat her own arguments, but it wasn’t unheard of. A symptom of a totally Dominated individual.

“Yes. Completely right,” she replied.  Nines went from looking emotionless to looking inebriated in a blink of the eyes.

“You know—and I’ve been meaning to tell you this for a long time—you know, you were basically asking to become a vampire with a name like that,” he said, cracking a drunk-looking grin. Desdemona smiled a little in response as she walked across the empty diner, almost clinically bright, to another table. There she found a copy of that day’s L.A. Sun.

“Did...did you ask for it?” he asked. She wasn’t facing him, but she could tell he was no longer smiling.

“Stop talking, Nines. You’re making this harder on yourself than you have to.” He swallowed and nodded slowly, unconsciously relaxing back on the small couch at the wall across from the bar. “One more irrelevant question, or, God forbid, werewolf story, and you might faint. I’ve never seen a kindred faint, granted, but I imagine it’s not flattering.”

The diner’s bar was brightly lit and full of sparkling bottles and glasses that would have enticed them both in their breathing days. Now, the sight just made Desdemona feel cold. Nines, she could feel, paid no attention to them. He was paying rapt attention to her to see what her next request would be. The thought made her feel wrong, like she was toppling a priceless statue from its plinth—that servile attitude was alien to her vision of Nines, but she was the one forcing it on him.

Finally, she saw the second item the was looking for: a clean rag behind a bottle of Bacardi, half full of the amber liquid. She took it and wet it in the small sink behind the counter. Back at Nines’ couch, she set the newspaper next to his head with the date visible. His eyes tracked her dumbly under half-closed lids. One of his eyes was in danger of being closed by drying blood, and a trickle of the same was dripping from his mouth now. First, she grabbed a glass for him to spit into. A viscous string of blood and what might be stomach mucosa trailed from his mouth after he had done so. Desdemona quickly caught it with the damp cloth and wiped the rest of the blood out of his lips.

“This will sting,” she stated, taking his chin where there weren’t burns and tilting it. She wiped the blood off his eye and cheek in short, upward strokes, as delicately as she could manage. Nines hissed and grabbed the fabric of the pillow next to his leg, but otherwise put up no fuss. She tried to avoid the large cut, but wasn’t successful—a stroke of the rag tore it open wider to reveal ruby muscle, and her victim moaned through clenched teeth.

“I’m so sorry, Nines, but I have to do this,” she said. Then, in a falsely cheery voice, “There! Now you’re recognizable.” At that, she put the still-cool cloth over part of his abdomen, which a rolled-up shirt revealed to have a long stitch in it, surrounded by blotchy red skin. She took out her phone, positioning herself so that only his head and shoulders were in view, and so she could see the mangled werewolf head on the table behind the couch. Nines looked puzzled, but then his eyes widened in recognition. He promptly put on a lopsided grin and performed an almost perfect “bras d’honneur.” Desdemona giggled despite herself. Moments when she felt guilty often made her laugh at nearly everything.

“As authentic as that is, Nines, we’d better do another take. Just in case I want to convince a non-Anarch to actually help me.” His expression changed, robotically, to a blank one, and he dropped his arms lifelessly to his sides. She took the picture and looked away. That made her feel as if someone had dumped ice water on her. Sighing, she put her phone back into her long leather coat and brought out two blood packs.

“One last thing. You might not like this, but here. They’re potent, and from a well-educated kine who had a dose of morphine in her system.” Nines’s brows furrowed, and Desdemona could feel his will strengthening again. He started stirring, making his ruined hip and legs emit a chalky scraping noise. She winced, and as quickly as Desdemona had Dominated him, she found herself fighting for the corner of his mind she’d claimed.

“‘Resting’ means lying on that couch and staying put until you’re completely healed, Nines,” she insisted. He stopped stirring and opened his mouth several times, as if he wanted the to speak but kept stopping himself. It looked for all the world like he was seeing the glaring lights, red plaid, and retro-style chrome of the little diner for the first time. After the initial confusion, he settled on her and growled through his teeth.

Desdemona closed the gap in between them with one stride and knelt beside his head, trying to catch his eyes. Nines realized what she was doing and darted his eyes all over the room, but when she caught his chin a second time and tilted him to face her, even he had to comply.

“Nines. Take this blood. Drink every sip slowly, and only when you feel the morphine wearing off—I don’t know what the effect will be if you drink it all at once. Whatever you do, _don’t_ move your legs.” She noted her blood dissipating rapidly, more blood than she had intended to use. No matter. This was important, and there were kine on the way to Ming’s temple.

Nines looked genuinely angry now, so much so that Desdemona captured his eye contact, she suddenly felt a sharp stab of nerves. He held out his hand, but she had to put the first bag in it and close his hand around it. Holding on by a finger, now. She put the second bag on a nearby table, which she drug near enough for him to reach it.

“Drink. It.” He pulled out the stopper and slowly brought it to his mouth, hand shaking. Nines did drink, finally. He made a little sound in the back of his throat and leaned back, the twisted grip his red fingers had on the couch lessening. The tear Desdemona had made in his cut started to merge with neighboring skin, and then with the rest of the skin of his temples. The burns, from a grenade blast and from the dawn that had almost cremated him, got more flesh colored by a shade.

“Stop,” she demanded. He did. Desdemona took a deep breath and looked at his legs again, making sure his calf was aligned correctly in its makeshift duct tape and stick splint before the blood made it heal crookedly. It wasn’t—probably due to him trying to leave the couch earlier. She had to twist the thing to the right. It was hard to tell that it was a calf under the jeans leg by touch, as something had crushed it to the texture of slush. Nines didn’t seem to notice, thankfully. The morphine was evidently kicking in quickly. Desdemona stood up, satisfied, and turned to face the door, bathed in a weird, pink light. The sound of Nines coughing and gasping surprised her.

“Damn it, kid. I don’t like being told what to do. Especially by Ventrue,” said Nines, his voice little better. _Oh, dear. Slipped the leash as soon as it went slack, as the Primogen would say_ , thought Desdemona. She drew herself up and turned as imperiously as she could, which was saying something.

“You’re still taking that blood. You know that, don’t you?” she said. “I can waste my time here all night with this, and then you’ll be out of the best opportunity you’ve had for a coup in years. Even after that, though, you’re still drinking every last drop.” Nines shook his head as if trying to wake himself up. He shifted himself to get off the couch, but found he couldn’t, either due to Desdemona’s Domination or to weakness.

“You need it more than me. I’m apparently the one who’s going to be layin’ on my ass the entire time, thanks to you.” At that, she couldn’t help but smirk wryly.

“Thanks to the _wolf,_ Nines, the wolf and LaCroix. I can’t believe you’re acting so stupidly all of a sudden. You’re almost 100 years old,” she said.

“Blood loss, kid. It’ll do that to ya,” he said, face still stony.

“ _Mr. Rodriguez_. Firstly, you will call me ‘Desdemona,’ ‘Ms. Temple,’ or nothing at all. Secondly, it just so happens that you need those silly little bags more because they are the only painkillers you have available. Thirdly, people heal faster when they’re comfortable. It’s a scientific fact.” Already she could see Nines open his mouth to retort. This was going to go nowhere. “Listen. You have something I _do_ need more than blood, and that is one of your grenades. Give it to me, and you can officially consider this a trade and not a favor. Why you hate the idea of me repaying my debts to you is beyond me, but we can leave it as it is for the moment. 3-0. Well, 4-0 now that you have sheltered me from the Blood Hunt.” Nines winced, and shook his head.

“Tell me you have others.”

“Of course.” It was technically true, but she would have to sell them to buy more high-powered ammunition from Mercurio. Having to clear the Society of Leopold and the Hallowbrook Hotel hadn’t left her with much, and she had the feeling that what she’d be facing would require the most violent firepower LA had to offer. Nines pinched his eyelids and sighed, something Desdemona hadn’t seen him do before.

“Alright, k—Des. I can’t believe I’m going along with this,” he said, grunting and unhooking the grenade from his belt. “Take it. This one’s for LA.” She tried to turn away after she’d put it in her coat, but he caught her hand. _Damn it. Enough of this,_ she thought. If her heart still pumped blood, she imagined it would be beating like a trapped bird’s wings. Now, she just felt hopeless.

“Just follow this road to the end.” Des paused, brushing her thumb lightly over his knuckles. Strong. Carefully, she placed his hand back at his side.

“I’ll go as long as I can, I promise you.” There was really nothing else to be said.

Damsel was obviously curious what had taken so long in the diner, but she didn’t ask. One could almost mistake her for a shy school girl by the way she averted her eyes. Apparently, Des saying she was glad to see Damsel took their relationship to dizzying new heights that she was ill-equipped to handle.

“Guess what? I’ve been promoted from ‘kid’ to ‘Des.’ I would’ve gone with ‘Mona,’ but I guess Nines prefers names to be as short as possible.”

“Yeah, well to me you're going to be ‘Doors.’”

“What? Why?”

“Because that’s how you killed your werewolf. We like nicknames that have to do with badass things we’ve done, but apparently that’s as badass as you get. So, Doors. Are you heading out now?” said Damsel.

“Almost,” Des said, taking out a device that looked like a rather bulky flash drive from her coat. “Take this receiver and plug it into a computer. I’m wearing a recorder that captures sound.”

“Um, why?” she said, taking the receiver despite her confusion.

“So that if I fail, shall we say, you know exactly when and how much I managed to do. Accurate information is invaluable, and you just might need to pick up after me.”

“No doubt. Hey, don’t tell me the Nozzies gave this to you.”

“Oh, they did. It’s not a big secret that I’m very strong, so I think there’s no harm in them knowing exactly how strong I am. Shock and awe, and all that. Needless to say, though, don’t put it in a computer that’s important to you.” Damsel nodded and looked sideways at her. The light was so pink that she looked almost like the subject of a monochromatic, uneasy portrait. Like this was already in some distant past.

 


	2. The Ghost People

A phone call each to Wong Ho and Zhao ensured that Ming Xiao’s temple and the area around was cleared of civilians. No ceremonies would be carried out that night but execution. Moreover, Skelter told her that because of the skirmishes between the Anarchs and Camarilla tonight, the temple shouldn’t be well guarded. Another phone call, this time to Yukie, promised her an ally. Des was therefore worried to see, but mostly smell, that there were two kine in the courtyard within the first wall, neither of which were Yukie. It wouldn’t be long before they spotted her, as the garden was quite small. The nearest guard, carrying a gleaming white sword, swung around to face the corner where Des was crouched. Her hand rested on the handle of her lovely Colt Anaconda with a thought. It seems her entrance wouldn’t be as quiet as she’d hoped.

As quick as a minnow darting through water, a black bolt  of a crossbow impaled the guard’s throat. He made a sound like a straw sucking empty air through water droplets, and then fell, hands pawing at the barb that had sprouted in his neck. The other guard ran over, looking shocked. He squatted down next to the fallen guard, still gurgling. By the time he saw the crossbow bolt in the dark, Des stabbed him with the arming sword she had gotten from a Sabbat in the basement of a library. She struck true, through the base of the skull. From his neck tattoos, it appears he was Tong. The one on the ground was still alive, however, trying to form words. With him, she sunk her teeth into his neck. He died in bliss. The crunching of gravel alerted her to the presence of Yukie, who was creeping towards her.

“You are behave, demon?” whispered the young hunter.

“Always, chickadee. What kept…” Des started, before she remembered Yukie’s English skills. “Why are you late?”

“There was a...problem on the road. Many police, ambulance.” Des sighed in relief. Nothing unexpected.

“I see. Do you have the radio? One that does not use wifi?” The girl gestured to her backpack. “Let me see it.” She pulled it out: a nice, small emergency crank-operated thing. Excellent. There was no telling whether or not the temple would have connection. Yukie also got a tripod, bless her.

“We kill ‘ghost people’ now?” The girl asked, like an eager child.

“Almost,” Des replied, and ruffled her hair. “Now we’re ready.”

The temple grounds and guardhouses held no surprises. Yukie occupied the guards up close, for the most part, while Des picked them off with the Anaconda or her arming sword. A few ammunition caches were tucked away in places, and by the end Des had recovered almost all her blood. After using her Fortitude discipline, Des made sure she was the one to open the door of the temple proper, an impressive pine creation that evoked strength and eternity. Gary Golden said that it was a poor imitation of the Chinese original, but it looked fine to Des.

Inside, she was met with the sight of an equally impressive hall and the subtle sounds of more guards hiding at the end in an adjoining hallway. _God help me, if I don’t find a Kuei-Jin, I might not be able to do this._

The room was lit primarily by the light of rows and rows of golden candles on either side of a central aisle, so it was not hard to move in undetected. Taking out the watch of one of the fallen guards, she threw it to the middle of the aisle, away from the pillar she was hiding behind. A guard peeked from his cover, and was retired by a stolen bolt fired from the crossbow of the watch’s owner. More unwieldy than the Anaconda, but also more quiet, even with Des’s silencer. A second kine died like his partner, but a third guard emerged from a side room right behind her. From the lack of noise he made, it would seem he was no longer alive. From the gasp he let out after his knife chipped on Des’s skin, it would also seem he had not fought many Cainites.

He managed to stab at her her again before she turned around, clothed in her heightened Presence. The Kuei-Jin, who looked like a young gangster in a business suit, visibly cringed. Des had a split second. The crossbow was a slow load, but the arming sword was close at hand. She aimed an unterhau at the flesh just under his ribs. At first there was little resistance, as if she was cutting into several rubber bands. She cut halfway up his torso, nevertheless, and the Kuei-Jin’s face registered shock and pain. She took the next bolt from the crossbow’s small quiver and stabbed up to the Kuei-Jin’s heart through his fifth and sixth ribs. The thing was wooden, but it also had a metal tip. Hopefully that would do the trick—she hadn’t been able to find out much about Kuei-Jin weaknesses.

There was a terrifying few seconds where the man merely looked surprised. He dropped his knife and stumbled a few paces, finally falling to his knees facing away from Des. After a great shudder, however, he stopped moving and fell to his side. By then, Yukie joined her to help her drag the man into the room he had attacked from: a long room full of empty boxes, cobwebs, and a few rats that fled from the light of the main room. Good, but still too near the action. In the very back, there was a cleaning supply closet of respectable size. Maybe that was what Golden had been referring to. They dragged their victim into there.

“Yukie, would you tie him?” The girl nodded in response and got to work. Meanwhile, Des set up the tripod in front of the Kuei-Jin, attached her phone to it, and  started recording. She produced the radio from Yukie’s backpack. Cranked up the power, and tuned it into the city news channel. “The following areas have been blocked off by order of the Chief of Police due to police standoffs with rival gangs: Santa Monica Pier…”

The Kuei-Jin was still fixated by Des, his face rapt with wonder and terror. Yukie had apparently finished hogtying him.

“Finished, dear?”

“Yes, but he not have left hand! It hard.” said Yukie, sounding put off.

“Oh, really? I’ll look for it,” replied Des. “I don’t _remember_ cutting it off.” Sure enough, in the main hallway, what appeared to be a large, fat spider was scuttling towards the large gong at the far end. Upon closer inspection, it was revealed to be the Kuei-Jin’s hand. She skewered it with another crossbow bolt and brought it back to the room to nail it to the wall behind him. It continued to twitch.

“Yes, clever, ma’am. I apologize,” stammered the Kuei-Jin, looking for all the world as if he were witnessing a stray dog stand up and teach him economics.

“Apologize by telling me about Ming Xiao. Do you know about any any agreement between her and our Prince?” Des asked.

“Yes. The truce. The Camarilla won’t hunt in Chinatown without our permission, and we won’t hunt outside of Chinatown without the Prince’s permission,” he said.

“Don’t be obtuse, or this will become much worse for you. Tell me the most _recent_ agreement, as much as you know.” The Kuei-Jin became more reserved.

“I am not sure. Er, ma’am.” Des smiled bitterly and caught his eyes. If it was possible, his eyes got even wider, and his will accepted hers with the same resilience as brittle drywall. Fear needled her chest. What if he didn’t know? The Chang Brothers did, but, they were probably of much higher status. Des was not in control of this situation.

“Spare me your ‘ma’am’s.’  Tell me the the most recent agreement,” Des demanded.

“Ah yes. Of course. Ancestor Ming Xiao and Prince LaCroix agreed to combine forces to drive smaller factions from L.A. Independents. Anarchs. Sabbat. Later on, Ancestor Ming Xiao added the provision that LaCroix should no longer seek the Ankaran Sarcophagus.” Des smiled and walked back, looking at her phone on the tripod. She projected confidence, but inwardly, waves of relief flooded her body.

“Repeat that once more.” He did, and Des stopped the recording. If she survived the encounter with Ming Xiao, she would send it out to all the acquaintances she’s made in the Camarilla, influential or no, and the Anarchs and Independents for good measure. Not now, though. Then, the Camarilla would know she was here.

“Yukie. Remember what I told you to do now?”

“Yes.”

“Tell me.”

“Stay here and guard ghost man. If you call, send facetime of ghost man. Keep the radio running on news and police station. Call you if they talk about you or Venture Tower or Chinatown.” Des nodded.

“Almost perfect. What else?”

“If you call to say ‘leave,’ leave town,” she said, more grave than usual. “If you don’t call, leave L.A. at dawn.”

“And don’t tell me or anyone else where you’re going, even if they beg.” She looked down and bit her lip. Des ruffled her hair and held her shoulders reassuringly.

“Hey. Don’t worry. You remember what else I said? You, Yukie, are the strongest 17-year-old in the entire world. You’re good. Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Des smiled at her until Yukie returned one.

 

* * *

 

Whenever Damsel got stuck with a non-combat role, she felt like climbing up the walls. It was as if there were a pool of cold water inside her, and inactivity made it break its bank and flood her entire body. Radio updates came in downstairs, and Penny, the Toreador on communications duty downstairs, would come up and tell her. She knew these updates were all several minutes after the fact. Almost anything could change in that amount of time. So far, Skelter’s guerilla harassment tactics were going as planned in kiting Camarilla forces. The Last Round was completely surrounded by police and inaccessible, but they’d predicted that, hence the out-of-the-way hotel information hub and the moving trucks Skelter was using as mobile command centers.

What was Skelter doing at that moment, though? Did the Cammies figure out their plan? Would Hollywood be breached? Did the Cammies have any secret weapons to use against their Gargoyle? Des had given them the Third Eye Charm, but surely that wasn’t the only trick Strauss had up his sleeves. Every time one of their group made a sound even near the stairs, she drew her shotgun. Penny almost got a hole punched in her fuchsia cardigan when she got too near.

After a few instances of this, Damsel ransacked the hotel for a computer to put Des’s receiver in. In the kitchen used for room service, there was a small, old tablet in a cubbyhole, presumably left there by a waitress or bartender. She grabbed that and ran up to her post at the entrance to Nines’s diner. The moment of truth: she plugged it in. Sure enough, an audio recording began playing. The distinctive sound of Des’s high-heeled booties was sounding on old, wood floors. The sound of metal being rent. A gasp of fear from a man with a high-pitched voice. Thick cloth and skin being pierced.

“Ha! Nice,” laughed Damsel, tapping her fingers on the butt of the gun, less rapidly than before.

“What are you watching, Damsel?” croaked Nines from behind the door.

“Nothin’, it’s just sound. Broadcast from Des. She’s got an audio recorder on.”

“Well, open the door so I can hear!” Damsel did him one better: she brought the tablet in with her. If Penny or any of the other guards saw anything on the way up, they would yell or press one of their distress buttons. Then, Damsel could be back at the top of the stairs with the door closed in literally almost an instant.

Des’s encounter with the young Kuei-Jin had their focus in a vice. When she brought it down, Nines started grinning like a maniac. When the little human she apparently ghouled mentioned the missing hand, however, his expression slowly melted to anxiety.

“Shit shit shit, find the hand, find the hand,” he muttered. When she did find it and skewer it, he leaned back in the couch and closed his eyes, pressing his closed fist to his mouth.

“Nines, chill. She hasn’t even gotten to Ming yet. That devil was just small fry.”

“Still a devil, Dams. A lot is hanging on just her. I have the right.”

“Sure. Doesn’t mean you should use it. Don’t tell her I said this, but she’s a fucking battleship wrapped in a suit.” Nines just rolled his eyes, but Damsel persisted, sounding indignant.

“She’s going to come back with LaCroix’s head on a silver platter with a side of paté foie gras.”

“Good Lord. She’s good at fighting. Great, even. Doesn’t mean you don’t watch your fuckin’ back.” Damsel shushed him: by the sound of it, Des had found a stairway.

They heard Des go through paper hallways as quiet as a snowy graveyard. They had to strain their ears to even tell that they were listening to anything. Often, they’d hear a whispered word, and then the unmistakable sound of the Kiss. There was one room where she actually had to take out her guns. Nines sat up straighter and winced when he heard her take a few hits. She barely made a sound—Fortitude made her a walking sculpture, apparently—but the implication was unspoken. How many guards would hear?

She got through more hallways, where some guards burst from the walls with the dry ripping of rice paper. You don’t hide in walls without having a damn good idea someone is coming. Nevertheless, she went on smoothly. She burned a lot of blood, but apparently there were a lot of kine to Dominate and drain. There were Kuei-Jin, too, but not as many as mortals, and not as experienced as the Anarchs had fought before the Capes came in. Damsel smiled bitterly. They’d done their job killing off some devils, at least.

There was a huge beast of a man in a room with some sort of waterfall. His footsteps sounded like a dull wardrum on the floor. Des didn’t even bother using disciplines with him, she just sniped him from the raised area it sounded like she was on. It shrieked and dissolved as it died, and Des jumped over a balcony to kill more guards with some sort of edged weapon.

“Conserving ammo. Smart, for a blue blood,” said Nines. Damsel looked over at him.

“What, now you’re the president of her fan club?”

“It’s called constructive criticism. Compliments count, too.”

“She can’t hear you,” Damsel said, smirking. “If she could, she’d probably be like ‘How rrrrrude, thou base vagrant, thou wearer of dad shirts!’”

“Old habit. Now, shut up.”

Eventually, Des came to a trap door opened by a lot of stone scraping, and then a whole stone basement that echoed like a mausoleum. Des gasped at the sight. If it had Des reeling, they’d have to see it for themselves when Chinatown became an Anarch territory.

More whispered commands, Kissing, gunfire ricochet, and the high whine and whoosh of blades passing overhead as Des crawled towards men screaming in fear and anger.

“Damn, this is way too good for just her to be getting all the glory for alone. I’m going to have to take out my jealousy on her when she gets back,” said Damsel. She looked over to see that he was back to his fist-biting, wearing a face she imagined a man under trial might have when faced with the jury.

“Alone,” he repeated.

 


	3. Scatter

"It’s a fucking dead end! I don’t have the time for this!” Des’s voice was more anxious than Nines had ever heard it before. Not a comforting thought. “There’s just traps, hallways, and four mediocre jade statuettes.” Here, she punched a wall. The sound of her hand on the wall made an almost metallic sound. “Oh, and four pedestals. And I suppose I’m supposed to put them in the right order like Indiana goddamn Jones.”

Penny knocked on the doorframe to the diner. By her smile, it seemed Skelter’s work was going more smoothly than Des’s.

“Nines, Skelter’s got the Cammies’ main group in a corner. They’re bringing out Golyat.”  Golyat, the Gargoyle. Nines grimaced both because of the squirming pain in his belly, and because he didn’t like thinking about Golyat. A creature made of four dead vampires—a walking graveyard, in other words. He took another little sip of his morphine blood pack, nice and slowlike, just like Des told him to. Her words were like an iron hand on his neck now. Either that, or an iron guardrail. He could still feel his entrails rearranging themselves then, but it no longer hurt. Strong stuff, that morphine.

“Heh. Rest in pieces, Cammies.” Damsel growled.

“Thanks Penny,” said Nines, waving her off. He could hear something happening on Des’s end, something strange, like the sucking of wind through a windowpane and the buzzing of a circuit board combined.

“For the record, facing the door and going clockwise, the statuettes go dragon, crane, elephant, cat,” she said, her cadence back to its normal briskness.

The devil-bitch Ming Xiao wasted no time in telling Des off when she walked through whatever was making the wind sound. Something grand about being dissatisfied with the way Des had chosen her fate, as well as more bullshit about the fucking sarcophagus. Of course. _Grenade her_ , he thought. _Shove it in her mouth like an apple in a hog’s head._ Instead, Des opted to send the bitch a battery of automatic bullets—a familiar and reassuring tune. Also good.

The devil-bitch just hissed in annoyance and did something that made the water around her feet splash and ripple. Something big let out a hissing, gurgling growl.

“She’s a monster now,” stated Des, baldly. “A big one with a thick layer of jelly.” Without further ado, she resumed shooting. Her bullets pierced Ming’s body, making the devil-bitch release strange little shrieks that sounded like several voices together. There were more splashes, the sound of stone hitting stone, and Des’s grunts of pain. The telltale sounds of the Ming monster seemed to amplify, like there were two of her. Des screamed in what seemed like despair. The clicking of an empty chamber. _Oh no._

Nines could feel Damsel looking at him intensely. She looked just as angry as usual, but the widened of her eyes betrayed fear. Nines held up a finger: wait.

Des unlocked something hard from a clasp, and a loud but gentle shushing noise emerged with the click of a trigger. Then the soft bloom and flicker of fire. The polyvocal shrieks that Ming made reached a volume that threatened pain even on their end of the line. Des chuckled with satisfaction as steam rose from the Ming-monster’s skin. Two huge splashes.

“Dead,” Des said, and then picked up something heavy from the floor. “4-1.” Nines yelled incomprehensibly in triumph, hitting the back of the couch. He almost didn’t even notice the mention of that patronizing favor score. As if he were some fucker like LaCroix to do things for her just to get something out of it.

Another ginger knock from the doorframe. It was Penny again. Her look was grim. She was holding a burner phone to her shoulder. Whoever was on the other side was loud enough that their snarls carried over, along with the muffled sound of an explosion.

“Ming is dead!” called Damsel triumphantly.

“So is Golyat. Strauss arrived.”

 

* * *

 

Before she went into the Santa Monica Suites, Des turned off her recorder as a precaution. She’d mentioned to Skelter not to touch Mercurio over the phone before she’s set off for Chinatown, but priorities are less than ideal when fighting wars. The police dispatch she’d turned on in the cab mentioned Santa Monica Pier a few times in their updates on the “gang war,” after all. On the familiar street in front of the apartments, there seemed to be new bloodstains, though it was difficult to tell in the light of midnight, especially with the faulty streetlights. There were certainly more bullet holes in the surrounding architecture, and she could see police lights coming from inside the parking garage at the end of the street.

If Des were still alive, she would take a deep breath before she knocked on Mercurio’s door. As it was, she remembered an old visualization her Sire had taught her. _You are the stone knight lying on an old grave. Fully at ease, in full armor. Nothing can touch you. Nothing can harm you. You are already dead._ She even heard his voice when she went over the mantra, making her want to vomit. Too familiar. Mercurio opened the door, completely unharmed.

“So, lemme guess. You quit the Camarilla,” he said, looking none too pleased.

“You’re alive! I was afraid the fighting would’ve gotten to you,” she replied. “And no, the Camarilla quit me.” He waved off the concern.

“LaCroix has me hunting you. All that extended contact and whatnot, it makes sense. Anyway, though, that requires me not to go out in the frontline.” She looked sideways at him a little, looking for any signs of impending attack.

“Mercurio, isn’t it...agonizing for you to resist orders from your Domitor?” He smiled without happiness and looked away, clasping his hands together.

“Yeah. That’s why I ain’t gonna do it for long. It’s also why I haven’t asked what you’re using these weapons for.”

“What do you mean, ‘not for long?’”

“Well, about 30 or 40 minutes after you leave, I’ll, eh, phone in and say I saw you pass by the blood bank and go in whatever general direction. Vandal’s an Anarch-only ghoul now that Therese is dead and Jeanette is his Domitor, so it shouldn’t harm him any more than it would anyway,” he said, adding morosely, “If the Camarilla wins.” He opened the chests and boxes of his usual wares.

“You’re in luck, then, because you won’t have to lie. I’m selling most of my weapons to buy blood packs,” she said, shrugging off her pack of guns on the burgundy carpet and unpacking the heaviest first.

“Alright, alright, I ‘preciate that,” he said, sorting through his cash box as he surveyed the goods. “You look like shit, you know that?”

“Mmm. Just got done killing Ming Xiao. I’m sure the Prince won’t be opposed to that.”

“Which one’d ya use? I’ll give you more for it,” he laughed, picking up the Steyr-Aug and running his gaze along the barrel.

“The Steyr Aug, the Anaconda, and the flamethrower. I’m selling all of them, by the way. Along with the shotgun, the katana, and the crossbow, with all of the ammunition. Well, except for one crossbow bolt.”

“God damn, Ms. Moneybags,” he said, raising his eyebrows as he peeled off a few bills from several stacks of cash. “Don’t you want to keep _one_?”

Des stroked the mother-of-pearl handle of her Anaconda and sighed, turning its flawless surface over so the lamplight traced the engraving of the seraph. It was the gun she’d used the first time since she met her sire that she didn’t feel like nothing but a weapon in others’ hands: when she’d taken care of the plaguebearers for Damsel. Both she and Strauss wanted her to do it, but Des decided that the Anarchs were who she was really working for.

However, it was just a thing, a thing that she knew most of the guards at Venture Tower had almost exact copies of. She put it back on the table. Mercurio noticed her reluctance.

“I’m sure. I will sell all of the guns I have laid out, keeping only my sniper rifle” He shrugged his shoulders and slid over the money. After she took the money, Des smiled and held out her hand to shake. Mercurio looked confused, but shook anyway.

“If I call you tonight, obey.” A rush of blood left her—just insurance, she told herself. Mercurio’s mind was a bit hard, but brittle, like kindling. Maybe he was used to giving in, or maybe she just had the knack.

“Yes, Ms. Temple.”

“Now, forget.” He blinked, and his eyes focused to look as confused as he was moments before.

“Stay safe, Mercurio.”

“A-alright, Ms. Temple. Good luck.” He tried to let go of her hand, but she held on.

“If you find yourself in trouble, don’t be afraid to ask around for help at the Last Round, or Club Confession if you’re having money trouble. Just say Desdemona sent you.” Mercurio looked a bit disgusted at the mention of The Last Round, but he nodded, and Des released his hand.

When she came back to the cab, she did it with three blood packs. The cabbie looked up at her.

“Take me to the closest construction site, please. Quickly.”

 

* * *

 

The reports from Penny came faster and faster. Their forces had to scatter. The Camarilla was regrouping. Groups of Anarchs were missing, presumed dead. A group of Camarilla was unaccounted for. Damsel was looking at Nines, pleading for a sign of a plan. She was crying blood tears, though she didn’t seem to notice. He could remember several instances like this when his sire and his predecessor MacNeil were around. Their absence then was as obvious as his wounds, and just as weakening.

For several minutes, Des’s recording had gone silent. Nines might’ve gone into even more of a cold panic, but he at least knew she wasn’t dead, because whenever he tried to move his legs or down the last blood pack Des had given him, his body wouldn’t obey.

“Damsel. Get my guns ready, and when you do, get the latest locations from Penny. I’ll get up, but I need a little time.”

“Yeah? Hurry the fuck up,” she spat. Nines almost spat something back, but it felt like he was trapped in the moment of waking up suddenly from a dream: panic, and the sickening realization that you are powerless.  He didn’t have the energy for anything but processing, processing and trying to break his shackles.

Nines closed his eyes and tried to reach the part of his mind still attuned to Des. Before, when he had thrown off the Domination that kept him from speaking, it had been very obvious, like being submerged in cold water at crushing pressures. Whenever he tried to move now, it felt like something metal holding him back, but the awareness wasn’t constantly there. How had he fought back before? It had just sort of happened when he realized what she was doing and what she was asking of him, like a knee-jerk reaction.  

Where was her presence, now, though? He tried throwing it off when he felt the pressure preventing him from moving, but it seemed immovable. If he held on long enough, though, it almost felt like he’s grabbed some part of Des, somehow. Maybe a memory, maybe part of her spirit.

He heard the audio on Des’s line switch back on, but he hardly registered it, because at the same time, he heard tires screeching outside and someone yelling. The missing Camarilla contingency, or a group of Anarchs come for reinforcements? He tried reaching Des again, desperately.

 

* * *

 

On the way to Venture Tower, on the border of Hollywood, someone was building what looked to the beginnings of a hotel from the ashes of a crumbling housing project. It was there on one of the skeletons of new floors that Des found a rock pulverizer, as beautiful and gleaming to her eyes as a fine ring. Without another thought, she dropped the Sarcophagus Key inside its funnel and turned it on. It was deafening and rough, like the engine of one of the old cars her uncle used to try and fix. She could barely tell the heavy stone object was being crushed to dust inside. After a few rounds of dropping larger chunks back inside the funnel, all that was left of the Key was a soot-soft powder. A brisk winter wind passed through the floor, unimpeded by walls. Des offered most of the ashes to it, and it was swirled off in all directions: Downtown, Chinatown, Hollywood, and the Pacific Ocean. The rest she placed in a little velvet bag.

“The Key is gone. 4-2,” she said into her recorder.

She allowed herself a moment to enjoy the view. Wind danced through the spaces in between the buildings and their bones, producing a familiar, haunting note, one that communicated to her instinctual brain: warning. Nevertheless, the sounds seemed holy to her, and she couldn’t help but be in awe. The moment was interrupted by the feeling that someone was trying to break a Domination bond. Who was it? Mercurio? No. The Kuei-Jin? No. Nines? Yes, it was him, and he was fighting hard. She closed her eyes and let go of a bit more blood. She could feel Nines’ presence in her mind, then, a new shadow on a wall full of flickering shapes.

_Des? Des! Let me go! Let me go now!_ Immediately, she felt panic.

_What’s wrong?_

_The Gargoyle is dead, and our guys are scattered. Oh, and I hear gunfire outside the hotel. I can only help our people if you let me fucking heal myself._ Des gasped as if burned and released him with a thought. He sent her a wave of grudging gratitude.

_Go. Forgive me. I wanted to make sure you were safe._ _I have a trick I haven’t used yet that might help._ She could almost see him emptying the second blood pack and growling as he got up and limped to the door. He was still in her head, so she knew she could hear her as he marched out into the war. Her influence was slipping off, and she knew he would not return to the receiver until it was all over. This was her last chance to speak to him before the end.

Des reached out with all her strength, rebuilt carefully from the moment he stood up and shouted at her executors. When he saved her from the Sabbat, she began to suspect he wasn’t just trying to undermine LaCroix’s decisions. When she heard praises from everyone who’d met him, enemy or no, she began to suspect he was just as honest and high-minded as he seemed. When he asked her if she was alright after going into the sewers to find the plaguebearers, she knew.

That was the last time she saw him before the Prince made her betray him. As soon as she learned what she’d done to him when she’d told what she’d seen at Grout’s mansion, she knew she could never allow herself rest until she’d done everything she could for him and his city.   

_Nines. I’m selfish. I think you know this._ He was still listening, though he was focused on loading a pistol. Des could no longer interpret the echoes of his emotions. _What I’m doing and what I’m going to do isn’t for me, though. It’s for you, for you and L.A._ From the floor she was on, she could see almost the whole city. All of the lights were shining as colorful and strong as the stars do, though they’re enough lifetimes away to make them appear cold and monochrome. Every neon sign, every seedy alley, every lonely vista, and every strange, complicated person she’d met was somewhere in the depths of that ocean. Her dead heart sounded every moment in time and every place in the city out like a sea creature singing out to a remote family, perhaps too far away to hear.

It seemed like Nines’ presence was close, like he was going to respond. Des could feel the echo of his physical presence, reassuring. But it was gone in another gust of wind, and the connection was broken.

 


	4. The Ivory Tower

On the way to Venture Tower, Des sent the Ventrue Primogen, Yulia Zima, the picture she’d taken of Nines and the video she’d taken of the Kuei-Jin’s confession, along with the postscript: “Urgent News.” She thought for a moment, then sent it to Primogen Strauss as well. He wouldn’t forgive her for Golyat or the spying, she knew, but he and Zima might have enough clout to get rid of the Prince if she failed. At any rate, even if he disbelieved her, by the time his interns tracked where she was it would be too late. Zima was a different story.

Next, Des sent the same message to every single contact in the world of kindred she had on her phone. Most of them were ghouls, or the childer of older and more powerful kindred, but the subject matter was high-interest enough to make it up the grapevine. Finally, Des video-called called Mercurio. She almost hoped he wouldn’t pick up, and for a sick second she thought he wouldn’t, that his survival instinct would prevent him. He was too loyal, however.

“What the fuck? I told you I had to report on you. Stop calling me!” Bless him. He seemed panicked.

“Thank you, Mercurio. But I need you to contact all the Camarilla field leaders you know and give them the orders to retreat to South L.A.,” she said. His eyes glazed over, like he was about to fall asleep. “Use all of the Prince’s blood you have to Dominate them into obeying, if you have to.”

“Yeah. Yeah, sure. You got it, Ms. Temple,” he said. Apparently “all the field leaders he knew” was quite a large number—she even recognized Strauss’s assistant’s information in the mix she glimpsed from Mercurio’s eyes, as well as Primogen Zima. That should serve to confuse their ranks, and if they traced it back to her phone, it would already be too late. Mercurio wouldn’t be as lucky.  It wouldn’t take long for Mercurio to be recognized as an Anarch tool, as unwitting as he might be. She prayed that he took her advice.

Because she felt confident no one was listening to the receiver at the moment, and because the cabbie was managing to find relatively obstacle-free routes, Des felt comfortable hooking up her phone to the cab’s stereos and listening to a few songs to calm herself. The cabbie was enthusiastic when she asked permission to do so. Apparently, he didn’t get many chances to encounter outside culture.

They were elgiac songs for Golyat, dead Anarchs, and the innocent people she was about to kill, as well as comforting songs for those who would be listening afterwards. When she had gotten tired of humming along, they were almost there. She shut off the music, and the cabbie seemed disappointed.

“Something wrong, miss?” he asked.

“No. I just miss the motorcycle I had when I was alive,” Des lied. She found that lies that were technically right, or at least close to the truth, worked much better. “You know quite a lot, Mr. Cabbie. What are you?”

“I am but a simple driver. I drive people to their destination,” he intoned.

“That’s not what I meant. You’re either kindred, a ghoul, or some other creature that knows quite a lot about our condition and politics. Kindred, I think. You feel like one of us.” The cabbie just laughed in response. It was an amused laugh, but not without a little malice. “Let me guess,” she continued, a bit piqued. “You’re the antediluvian that everyone thought was in the Sarcophagus.” He laughed louder in response.

“Just remember, kindred: it is the blood of Caine that makes our fate.”

“No, but close. Death does.” At that, they’d reached the base of the tower. Des closed her eyes. _You’re dead. You’re dead. Nothing can touch you._ She got out and tapped on the driver’s window. The cabbie rolled it down and looked up. She handed him all of the money she had left over, about $30.

“I know it’s not enough, but that’s all I have.” He nodded grimly, seeming to understand.

 

* * *

 

Nines did not have time to sort out just what the fuck he was supposed to do with the confession Des had given him. He, Damsel, and a couple of the hotel guards destroyed the Camarilla pawns that had strayed too far into Hollywood. They seemed surprised when they came across the Anarchs, thank fuck, but they attacked just as efficiently when they realized what they’d found. Immediately, two peeled off south, towards Downtown. Nines was hanging back on a balcony with one of Penny’s ghouls, since he couldn’t walk four steps without getting dizzy and stumbling. Nothing seemed solidly rooted on anything; even the ground he was kneeling on seemed suspended on a weather vane by yarn.

Even so, he and the others massacred the Cam scouts. The last one, a female Tremere, did take a while, to be honest. She looked scared, but if she was, it didn’t affect her ability to throw their weapons around without touching them. Almost fell over himself when he saw it, truth be told. Nines thought it might be a hallucination from too much morphine at once, but no, of course not. This was not a Tremere power he’d seen many times before.

“Well, if they didn’t have fuck-you powers like that, it wouldn’t really be fair for them,” he said to the others when they’d finished. They laughed, uncertain.

The closest group of Anarchs was Jack’s, and Penny determined that they were being chased along an industrial area in between Downtown and Hollywood. He, Damsel, the taciturn but capable Bedlam, and a gangbanger-looking newbie called Meatsauce took two cars to try and intercept them. The construction area was near a river, and looked to be a vast maze of office buildings in the making. A few street lights illuminated the jungle of scaffolding, along with some disparate work lamps that looked like lost stars dying out. They pulled their cars into the second floor of an incomplete parking garage overlooking the main street.

“Shit, how are we supposed to find them now?” asked Damsel.

“We wait for more information,” Nines replied. “Just a few minutes here, then we move on. Calm down and get ready for action.”

It seemed something was looking out for them, because after just a few seconds they heard the unmistakable sounds of a posse of bikers and gunfire echoing through the refracting angles of the complex-in-progress. The light of one of the stray work lamps glimmered on a pile of steel beams near them. He had an idea.

“That should be him. Everyone who can pull Potence, grab some beams,” he barked.

Jack and his contingency rounded a corner, followed by a few heavy cars and police prowlers, headed by what looked like an armored vehicle. The bikes passed underneath Nines’ feet, and he readied his beam like a javelin on his shoulder. Before the last one passed him, he threw it down, praying his timing was right. The others followed suit. His I-beam missed, crashing into the concrete next to the armored vehicle as it sped underneath. _Morphine. Must be._ Nevertheless, the truck swerved to the side, and the car behind it stopped outright.

Meatsauce’s I-beam struck a prowler square on the hood, producing the distinct screech of metal on metal. It toppled backwards and crushed the cab, forcing the vehicle to a stop. Damsel's fell across two cars, a masterful throw. The result was that all cars but the armored one ricocheted off the I-beams or eachother like pinballs.

“Cars, now!” He shouted at them. “After the armored one! We cripple it and then split!” They were able to catch up to the slow-moving armored truck without much trouble, outside of a few impotent shots from the stranded Cammies they’d left behind. Nines pulled back the sunroof of Meatsauce’s SUV and aimed one of his longer-ranged rifles at a back tire. One of them must have seen him, because they started to swerve.

“ _Fuck_ me,” Nines cursed as he turned on his Celerity. _I shouldn’t be doing this, but I can’t help it._ Time seemed to slow, but not as much as he was expecting. He blinked, and suddenly there were two armored trucks with two identical smarmy-looking motherfuckers leaning out of the shotgun side with something spiky in their hands.

“Caltrops!” he yelled at Meatsauce, before shooting at the exposed Cammy. The bullet hit his hand and he dropped the caltrops, but they still landed in the Anarchs’ cars’ way. Neither car could react in time. When Meatsauce hit the strip, Nines was almost thrown from the car. Both their and Damsel’s car skid to a stop, spinning like tops. Nines was flung against the rim of the sunroof, which cut into his abdomen almost as bad as the werewolf had. He dropped back into his seat, holding his stomach and mutely gasping. Out of the corner of his eye, he registered Meatsauce opening his door. Also, a figure with a red overcoat.

Celerity, then the roof of the car, rifle at the ready. There were six more Cammies coming out of the truck, then. He hit Strauss with a few rounds, knocking him back.

“Which one of you shitty little bootlickers is gonna kiss my ass first?” Nines shouted, reloading. Jack, on the other side of the armored truck, didn’t wait for any of them to answer and drove into a cluster of three with his bike. Jack’s other five bikers started to follow suit, but suddenly, a crescent of wind blew up the pulverized concrete and gravel on the street. The bikes got blown back with the sound of a giant’s footstep.

It happened pretty quickly after that, whatever it was. He was vomiting blood, and then his arm was off. He was holding his arm and beating Strauss with it, laughing all the while. Strauss was covering himself in blood, and Nines’ blows wouldn’t connect. He was crouching behind a traffic barrier, holding his arm to his shoulder and knitting the thing back on with sinew and the blood Des had forced on him. One of the stranded Cammies, a woman who was either a cop or dressed like one, came up and opened a gap in the Anarch ranks with a machine gun.

“Order from the Prince! We need to converge on South L.A.!” she called out.

“I will finish this first,” Strauss murmured, as calm as if he weren’t making all of one of an  Anarch’s blood boil and explode from her body. Nines was glad his vision was getting too blurry to tell who that pulpy mess used to be.

“No, you don’t understand. Mercurio said—”

“Mercurio?” said Strauss, sending out a bolt of blood to blast Damsel back into one of the cars. “Why would the Prince….?” Nines smirked at that.

 _Aha. So that’s Des’ trick._ He couldn’t help but feel a pulse of pride. Then, he noticed another presence in his head, similar to when Des Dominated him. Behind the traffic barrier, Strauss turned to face him.

“That little whore!” Strauss roared. With the sound of a rush of steam, the blood-cloaked terror was gone, leaving only ripples in the air as if it were above hot asphalt in the summertime. The armored truck started driving off, leaving the other Cammies to jump back in or run after it. Des. They were going to find Des. Strauss was going to find Des. It would be his fault for not noticing Strauss’s Auspex sooner.

Nines rushed the Cammy who’d heralded the Prince’s supposed message and ripped the machine gun from her, almost dropping it. His fingers felt like they didn’t belong to him, like they wouldn’t obey him fully. Des, in the way of that monster. Kneeling down, he rested the butt against his shoulder and the barrel on his knee. His reattached arm wasn’t responding yet.

He squeezed the trigger at the shrinking armored truck until his magazine was empty and he was surrounded by shells. He could’ve been shooting at the ocean for all the good it did.

 

* * *

 

Officer Chunk was warned away with Dominate. When he left, yelping in fear of either her or whatever he imagined to justify his sudden urge to flee, the rest fell to her arming sword. She recovered a Colt Anaconda and many bullets that way, as well as adding precious few drops to the Odious Chalice. Floors and hallways and doors passed her by. At first, she snuck around, catching a glance from a guard to stop him or her in their tracks, dumbfounded. Then, the Kiss, and the draining of blood. They, at least, died in peace.

Not so with the armored soldiers, no doubt alerted that the building was in danger of a terroristic threat. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t get at their necks, unless she came across the odd one without a helmet. If she’d known they were going to be there, she might have tried to call in another, more pressing threat somewhere else. There probably wouldn’t be time, however, or the necessary resources. Either way, they died with snapped necks and swift jabs to the heart, when possible. With bullets and multiple lacerations, many of which at the hands of their own comrades, when not. That was most of them.

 _This one’s for L.A._ , she thought, each time she killed one. The Downtown skyline, with its skyscrapers and winking cellphone towers, was in view wherever she went. Each time she killed a terrified soldier, completely confused at what was happening and shocked at the bodies of his friends, the sky looked a tint lighter. Most of it she attributed to light pollution, but she knew even that midwinter night would swiftly end, as would her blood supplies. At that point, she was down one and a half packs, plus the Chalice.

A stone’s throw from the apartments where the established Ventrue made their havens, she saw a man whom she thought was LaCroix himself, dressed up in kevlar and armed with an automatic rifle like one of the kine he’d sent to die. It was, in a way: the soldier looked remarkably similar, but he was not the Prince. The Prince wouldn’t strap explosives to himself, but he would apparently possess someone else to do so. Des suddenly doubted the mental autonomy of the other soldiers.

“I anticipated you’d make it this far,” said the soldier in LaCroix’s voice. “I had no doubts about your capability. But I am not so easily betrayed.” A flood of hot disgust welled up in her belly. When they got to this stage, there was little chance of removing the Dominator, but nevertheless, there was a chance. What would Nines do in this situation, if he had her abilities?

“Get. Out,” commanded Des, looking into the soldier’s dull, green eyes. She imagined that they looked a little afraid, so she allowed a spark of hope to drive her on to find a little crack or crevice for her to break in. Nothing. The Prince cackled through him.

“Did you ever think about what it takes to live as long as I have? To come this far? It’s certainly not concern for kine like Steven, here. Consider that in your last few seconds.”

“Stop,” said Des, not really expecting a result, as she reloaded her Steyr Aug.

“Tick, tick, tick. À bientôt, kindred,” said the Prince. As if to taunt her, he let Steven call out, “Help!” before he armed the explosive he’d strapped to himself and opened fire. The fight was quick, as Steven had no helmet: one squeeze of her trigger and his brains painted the rusty freight elevator behind him. He fell onto the concrete-dusted floor almost gently. With sure hands, she undid the clasps on the vest and dragged the man up, pulling his arms back. Only a minute and a half left. With effort, she wrenched the vest from the corpse, put it in the freight elevator, and pressed the “up” button. She couldn’t help but notice how slowly it went up as she ran away, her heels echoing hollowly against the drywall maze before her.

The resulting explosion made the concrete shards under her jump up, and she lost her footing, landing on her hands with a grunt. The first few turns of the maze were glazed with black, and the area where she’d sent the elevator up was coated with it. Pressing the “down” button revealed that, thankfully, the elevator still worked. On the floor above, dozens of dead soldiers were arrayed in waves from the elevator shaft. Horrifyingly, they smelled like cooking beef. _Stone knight, you’re dead, you’re dead. Nothing can touch you. You’re far away, somewhere else._ To her surprise, quite a lot of their ammunition was intact. She took another elevator to the top of the wing of the tower under construction, and crossed the covered bridge to the Tower proper.

 


	5. Hatred and Shame

Nines woke up the night after the takeback on the floor of his haven, surrounded by his guns, empty blood packs, a rusty pipe, and Damsel. Close by, Skelter was lying on the bed, looking like 12 trainwrecks and a dumpster fire. Still, not dead. Some nice, slow grunge was sifting in from the bar below. Nines smiled. They hadn’t managed to catch up with Strauss, but there had been nothing but good news rolling in otherwise. LaCroix gone, MacNeil avenged, and the Camarilla all but beaten in one night. How did Des do it? Foresight, that marvelous foresight, no doubt. And plenty of bullets. Nines was tempted to believe that she’d killed Strauss if he did manage to catch up to her.

He could not afford to assume, though, not with her or any of his people. His _other_ people, that is. He needed the tablet with the receiver. If he got that, he could know where to pick her up. They had a lot to talk about. That “doing it for you” thing, for instance. It was strange to admit, but the thought gave him a warm feeling, one he hadn’t felt many times before. He whipped out his old flip phone and dialed up Penny at the hotel. It took a while for her to pick up.

“Good to hear you, Penny. Ain’t ash, I see,” he said.

“Nines! You made it, too!” she replied.

“I need that tablet we left in the diner. Will you bring it to me, or should I head over there?”

“I...Oh my God. Oh...oh my God.”

“Should I go there, or do you come here? Better yet, you’ve listened to the whole thing, right? Tell me where Des is. We can go into all the exciting details with her.”

“Um, Nines, I don’t know if I can do this. I-I, uh.” There had been other times when he had felt an omen like this, like the shadow of a vulture had just passed over, but was too quick to be seen. One of them was before his brother died, another was when he’d found out MacNeil’s ashes were floating all over the Free State.

“Penny, focus. What do you want me to do?”

“Just come here. Please.” Nines shut the phone immediately and limped out of the bar to his truck, ignoring Skelter’s raspy questions. Damsel or anyone else could help Skelter, but only he could help Des.

The hotel was still closed for business when he arrived. A few kindred he recognized milled about the overly-decorated downstairs lobbies, but much less than before. They either greeted him with celebration in their demeanors or with simple, morose nods and smiles. They all seemed surprised when he brushed them off, figuratively or physically. Nines vaguely remembered getting that many betrayed glances after shutting down a raid attempt a few years back, but not many since. It was a strange feeling, the feeling of being looked at that way. Never got used to it, really, and probably never would. A few apologies, shot over the shoulder, served as rudimentary peace offerings. Pure instinct drove him directly upstairs, where he'd last seen Penny and the receiver. 

“Nines,” said Penny, to his side. “Over here.” She was peeking out from a door under the stairwell. He followed her into a long hallway with a few cleaning service trolleys parked to the sides. The hall was impeccably clean and had the same off-white wall color and bottle-green carpet as the rest of the hotel, but it had no decorations. The noises from outside died in the carpet and the barebones plaster. It made him feel like this was some area that the builder rejected and sealed off.

Penny beckoned him to one of the side rooms at the end. It was a storage room, as it turned out, where old or damaged equipment and furniture was kept. There were four or five versions of the same winged armchair he’d seen in all the rooms, all of them with stains or holes in them. A rolled-up carpet here, a nightstand with a rickety leg there. Several empty picture frames were stacked on the floor and various horizontal spaces. The light flickered a little when Penny flipped it on, and emitted a weak, faintly green light. Penny pointed to a folding card table in the corner, where the tablet with the receiver was lying.

“Penny, stop with all this smoke and mirrors. Where can I find Des? Desdemona Temple?”

“Um,” she said in a strange, wavery voice, looking away. “She doesn’t need our help.” Nines saw a tear in her eye, but she was also smiling intensely at the picture frames she was staring holes into.

“Penny. What the hell is that supposed to mean? What’s so funny?”

“I’m sorry, it’s just so, so...overwhelming.” She looked down now, wringing her hands.

“Answer my damn _question_ , Penny,” Nines said as calmly as he could. He wanted to grab her and shake her. She shook her head.

“I can’t. Just listen to the recording. I’ve set it to where you left off.”

 

* * *

 

“For those of you listening at home, I am now at the main group of Ventrue havens, which sit directly underneath the Prince’s penthouse. I need to be let in, or otherwise force the lock somehow,” Des said to her recorder. “The only other ways in are the glass to the offices, which is bulletproof, or climbing up the side of the building.”

The white marble and lovingly-varnished wood of the apartments’ antechamber was pristine. Des felt like a mutt off the street in her soot and blood-stained coat and suit, complete with slashed kevlar. A slight breeze from a nearby vent reminded her of the nakedness of her skin without makeup. There was no time, obviously, to have applied her favorite perfume to help center herself, so she pressed her face to the sleeve of her silk blouse that peeked out from her coat sleeve, hunting for a residual note or two. Gunpowder and grease. Ah well, not necessary.

A thorough sweeping with her hands got rid of a respectable amount of the concrete dust from her suit and Kevlar, though her stockings were a lost cause. Des could feel the particulars of her hair like her very own limbs, well enough to comb her hair back into place with her fingers. There was no point sneaking here, so she drew her shoulders back (“Pretend you’re tucking in your wings,” as her mother once said), and walked deliberately up the stairs. All Ventrue know that bearing was half of one’s impression, perhaps more. At any rate, it was a tailored ensemble, even if it happened to be filthy at the time. One has to do clothes like that justice. 

Des savored every step before she reached the door to the quarters. The others were watching her from their office windows through partially-closed blinds. None of them had opened fire yet: a sign that her plan of sending the video and picture first was worth the trouble. Des pressed the button of the gleaming silver buzzer lock next to the door. Primogen Zima herself answered in her most saccharine voice. A bad sign.

“Desdemona, dear, it’s been too long.”

“May I come in, my Primogen? I wish to use your hospitality.” An eternity of cool silence was her answer. Des tried to stay composed and refrain from pressing the button again to beg her.   

“Well, well, well, you want to use the tradition of Ethic Succor even as an Anarch?” the Primogen replied, finally. “I suppose I’d better reward your good sense. We have much to catch up on. Come to the office on the right.” The whir of the locks undoing themselves sealed the decision.

Both of the offices in the entrance hallway had their doors open. The one to the left, across from her destination, was occupied by Innocent Dembe, a cousin on the cusp of becoming an ancilla, as well as the Primogen’s favorite. He smiled warmly and nodded at the Jaegerspas XV he was cradling in his hands. Des nodded placidly in response.

The Primogen appeared to merely be a steely-haired older woman wearing a ruby choker, but Des knew her to be a Russian aristocrat from at least the late 17th century. She gestured to the seat ready in front of her desk and placed her chin on her hands, which she knitted together. Above her hung a framed copy of one of her favorite sayings:

    

> “No friend ever served me, and no enemy ever wronged me, whom I have not repaid in full.”
> 
>  

“So. Let’s get what you _don’t_ need to tell me out of the way. You’ve been working with the Anarchs, and have been for at least a few weeks. Perhaps even months. Nines Rodriguez is not dead. It appears, from your video, that the Prince had made an illegal agreement with Ancestor Ming Xiao, which, if true, would make him a criminal. Ah, and let’s not forget that you want to depose him,” she said, with smiles that did not reach her eyes.

“All correct, my Primogen.”

“How can you prove that you didn’t Dominate that man in the video to say exactly what you wanted?”

“I can answer that if you excuse me to contact my Ghoul.” The Primogen gestured for her to continue. Des promptly called Yukie with a video chat application. She picked up on the first ring, her eyes wild with anxiety.

“Yes?”

“Let us talk to the Kuei-Jin, please.”  Yukie flipped her camera and laid her phone hand on top of her crossbow, which was pointed squarely at the Kuei-Jin’s face. Des handed the phone to the Primogen.

“Look at me,” Primogen Zima commanded, patiently. She hadn’t even used Dominate just then, but her voice carried the weight of an Empress’s law. “Girl, move your camera closer. Yes, good. Now. _Tell me the truth._ Are you a Kuei-Jin under Ming-Xiao’s command?” The power of her Dominate made Des go cold and grip the arms of her chair tightly.  

“Yes. Or, I was. Ming-Xiao is dead,” answered the Kuei-Jin, his voice sounding dry and tired.

“Who killed her?”

“I believe it was this girl’s mistress.” Here, the Primogen raised her eyebrows at Des.

“Is what you said true about our Prince’s agreement? Did he agree, with Ancestor Ming Xiao, to kill or drive off all other vampiric factions in Los Angeles?”

“Yes.”

“I’ve heard enough. Girl, cut this man’s bonds and make sure he’s looking at the screen.” Des heard Yukie protest indistinctly.

“Yukie, do it. Trust me,” Des added. The sound of ropes being cut soon came from the phone. The Primogen leaned in closer to the screen.

“Kill yourself,” she ordered. Des heard a strange sound like cracking wood, and then a wet splat. Yukie gasped and started to hyperventilate. It needed to be done, but the sounds turned Des’s stomach, too. Primogen Zima closed the call and slid the phone back over the shiny, black desk. Her smile was now more friendly. “Amazing what we can do with technology these days, eh? Did you do something similar to let the Prince’s people know what your dearly-departed sire was intending to do?” Des’s heart dropped. _She knew._

“My Primogen, how—”

“Calm yourself, childe, I’m not holding it against you anymore. Jerome would have been proud to have raised such a resourceful Ventrue, and anyway, we all know he deserved it,” the Primogen said, seeming to become tired. “I distanced you from the rest of your cousins in the Gerousia because I was afraid you’d be a viper, constantly betraying the people above you, or else self-destruct. Now I see that I only succeeded in driving you to the first people who showed you kindness. I apologize.” Des studied the old woman’s face for any clue as to where she was trying to lead her. It looked for all the world like the elder was giving a heartfelt apology.

“I forgive you,” Des replied. “I managed adequately.” The Primogen gave what seemed to be a genuinely grateful smile, then.

“You can repay the Anarchs’ kindness without joining them, you know. You’ve done the Camarilla a great service tonight, so it won’t be as hard as you think to allow you to rejoin. Yes, even despite the stunt with Mercurio.” Aha, there it was: the Primogen’s ploy. What should she do? Agreeing to rejoin would allow her to continue being a double agent. It would allow her to survive this night. Sickly cowardice made her fingers, hands, arms, her whole body feel weak. As if sensing her thoughts, the Primogen began speaking again.

“The execution and the Blood Hunt were then, under Prince Sebastian. This is now. You may well have wanted to take back the death Jerome stole from you the night of his execution, but I can tell you want to live now. You want to change things. You’re royalty, and you need to rule.”

Des sighed and glanced away for a moment. Whoever was listening to this, currently or afterwards, would certainly be doubting her loyalty, and with good reason. The Camarilla way was safer, and the Primogen was right about what she wanted. What’s more, she could continue her useful and necessary work as a spy, and there would be no hostile parties waiting at the door once she’d finished her job, no doubt drained and injured. There would not be many choices when that time came.

 

* * *

 

It took what seemed like years for Nines to get to the part where the blue-blood Cape offered Des to leave the Anarchs. He paused the recording and leaned far back in his rickety fold-up chair. Even though he didn’t need to, he breathed in deeply, taking in the musty and familiar smell of moth balls and dust.

Des was taking much too long to answer. Is that why Penny had been so reluctant to tell him what happened? That Des said “yes” and promptly ripped off the recorder? If she went with the Camarilla, she wouldn’t need their help anymore, after all. Yes, that made sense. He’d seen it too many times: brothers and sisters cracking under pressure, beaten down to match the will of the collective. The Ventrue were all about the collective, too. He’d learned that as almost as soon as he was embraced.

These Ventrue, they were her people through and through. She was well-to-do and wanted to be richer, they were already rich. She was an educated member of the intellectual class, and so were all of them. The Ventrue Primogen was right about her being royalty, too. Des was a queen. He could see it in her posture even when she failed to hit even a single beer bottle when she was practicing in the abandoned building by the bar. It wasn’t hard to see how she could fail to imagine a future for herself with them.

The thought had crossed his mind before, he had to admit. Nines stood up abruptly and cursed, sending the chair he was using clattering back into the carpet, which smothered the satisfying crash he was expecting. He paced around the room, louder and more forceful than necessary. It hurt his legs, but he was almost enjoying the distraction at the moment.  

 _Still, there’s about an hour left,_ he thought. _And Des did do a lot of things for us. Gave us a lot of tools to use._ Besides the tidbits of information she’d left for them, there were the little gifts from an anonymous sender he’d found lying about from time to time before he went into hiding: a few samples of blood from kine of varied backgrounds who had consumed delicacies, a nice knife, a book of short stories, one or two new shirts.

He knew who they were from, though he tried hard not to give it away when she stopped by, or when he’d give her pointers on shooting or fighting. She, in turn, carefully avoided more friendly contact than was necessary right after these gifts, but smiled ever-so-slightly if he mentioned enjoying them. When she did that, it felt like he remembered sunlight feeling on a peaceful afternoon.

Those blood samples got him more emotional than he’d like to admit. Most of the food he’d eaten while living tasted good to him—hunger was the best sauce, after all—but it was ultimately bland and repetitive. It was more of the same in undeath, but he hadn’t considered any other possibility until he tasted those gifts, full of round and and complicated tastes. You could basically experience the exotic lives and personalities of the kine they’d come from, and even the nuances of the food they’d eaten, in every garnet drop. It was almost miraculous, tasting what he’d been missing for so long. That could be why he was giving Des more credit than she deserved for giving him objects that were probably laughably easy for her to get.

However, would someone who wasn’t completely loyal do that? Someone who was just with them for the convenience wouldn’t do those little things, especially if they were as inconsequential to her as he believed. Maybe. Salvador Garcia had betrayed MacNeil even after he’d given him shelter and comfort when he was beaten and exiled.

Nines considered listening to the conclusion later so he could calm himself, but he quickly vetoed the idea. He needed to know what she did and what happened to her. Even if it were true that she didn’t need his help, he needed the knowledge of whether or not all of her gestures were real or fake.

 


	6. Harpists and Strings

All the dark corners of the room, as few as they were, seemed to deepen, calling her. Des had already felt this fear once, in Nocturne Theater. It was the fear of death, Hell, and of making the wrong choice.

 _All the more reason that I face it._ What was really important was that the Anarchs didn’t need a spy in L.A. anymore, or at least not as badly as they needed a strong, unambiguous victory to bolster their morale. Something like that would give them hope in renewal, and, more importantly, strengthen their legitimacy.

“You are correct in everything you’ve said so far, my Primogen, but my reasons are more complicated than that,” Des said. “I can’t just escape with a change of allegiance. Even if I became the oldest kindred in existence, if I outlived kine, even, and whatever comes after, I would still die when the Sun loses its heat and engulfs the Earth. Do you remember the story of the Appointment in Samarra? That applies to us, too. Perhaps us especially.”

“Tell me why, then, you’re forsaking our traditions,” said the Primogen, leaning back and fingering her red choker, which at the moment reminded Des of those old tales of beheaded unfortunates holding their necks together with bandages. Maybe that was the point.

“I’m not, my Primogen,” said Des, leaning forward. “Our clan values autonomy. As it is now in the Camarilla, for every talented kindred who gains power, there are two fools who’ve gained a higher station due to age alone, and three dubious laws some unaccountable unknown has invented to settle a grudge. Take the law of killing a neonate if their sire hasn’t asked permission, for instance.” The Primogen crossed her arms.

“Hm. Very funny. You know where I’m from, what I’ve seen. In 1917, my country ran with the blood of those insufficiently devoted to the cause of egality and justice. They didn’t stop until 1991, day or night, in the streets or the Elysiums. That experiment the Brujah participated in joined the Black Plague and the World Wars in the ranks of the worst things to happen to mankind. Aren’t you afraid your comrades will lead this city down the same road?”

“I’m afraid of many things, that included. However, like you said before, that was then and this is now. We have more diversity in Clan and thought, and more experience, so there’s a lesser likelihood of that. Others gave our general movement the name ‘Anarch,’ but that’s an exaggeration. Some Anarchs are actual anarchists, some communists, some other, equally asinine political ideologies. They are not in power here. Most Anarch leaders are the oldest and most experienced, as you would expect. Areas are broken into district ruled by an executive, as necessary in a world of constant danger such as this. Common-sense laws, such as the Masquerade, are enforced.”

“So what do you believe is the difference, pray tell?” asked the Primogen.

“The difference is there’s more freedom to correct mistakes. The difference is that someone like LaCroix wouldn’t be chosen for leader over someone like you for long, and you wouldn’t have to play along with people like Strauss.” From the other room, she could hear Innocent chuckle. Des hadn’t heard him laugh before—it was quite a lot more joyful and boyish than she’d expected. The Primogen failed to suppress a little grin.

“Such a golden tongue, Desdemona. I can see who shaped you, right down do the serial number and mint,” she said. “Very well. What do you ask of me?” The pressure that Des felt lifted just enough for her to wonder whom the Primogen was talking about: Jerome or Nines. 

“I want you to allow me to pass through here to the Prince’s penthouse to subdue him. Afterwards, I will give him to you to be brought to Camarilla territory to stand trial. I believe that’s fair.” The Primogen nodded, picking up a teacup she had behind her computer and taking a sip.

“Of course. The Anarchs discovered his crimes first, after all. What do you request we do with you once you’ve done the deed?”

“I would prefer you let me go, but I can make no claims on your actions, then, I think.” The Primogen looked at her with an odd mix of sadness and satisfaction.

“Done,” she replied, clapping her hands. Strange—so little bargaining. “Now, listen to me very carefully, because if you want to do anything to our cousin Sebastian, you need to understand Dominate better. I assume you recall all the usual visualizations I taught you, yes? The metal, the wood, the climbing ivy, the stars, the puddles that become lakes?” Des nodded each time, looking anxiously at the gold and white clock on the wall. Not much time until dawn. “Think back to the times you were unable to Dominate someone, or when they threw off your control. What was different?”

“Leaving beside all the metaphors, there was a place for me, and then I wasn’t welcome. Or I wasn’t welcome from the beginning.”

“Yes! Precisely, dear. That’s the secret. When you Dominate, you’re not making yourself more irresistible or commanding. What you’re doing is finding a little part of your subject’s subconscious spirit that wants to help you, and then making them focus on it.” The Primogen was getting excited, then. “There’s so many parts to a spirit, Desdemona, so many people within a person. They can go any which way based on the slightest decision, regardless of what they’ve done before. The soul picks a piece to steer with and puts its strength in it, if it can. But consistency is so hard! If you really go inside yourself, dear, you’ll see your thoughts and your feelings be drug along by all sorts of things. You think you’re a harpist, but most of the time you’re the strings, and the whims and suggestions of others, or even things so base as the environment or your own body, are the fingers. If a tune catches your eye in just the right way, there are few who have the self-control to resist playing along.” Des nodded slowly. It seemed so obvious now to her, but before she had really only thought of her own brute mental force.

“That’s why it’s so much easier to Dominate people when you’ve blood bonded them, or if you’re using Presence, then. They already have so many parts of their mind looking for your approval and love.” She thought of Jerome and his sickening voice, how she wanted to please him even as she wanted to watch him burn in the light of day. Even when she watched the Sheriff’s massive kriegsmesser separate his head from his shoulders, she couldn’t get rid of the thought that she’d never get to see him laugh again.

“Yes and no. Don’t focus too much on their minds. They are not their minds. Don’t rely too much on your own skill with the Discipline, either, though it helps. The only way to resist a Dominator as skilled as our cousin is to have it all under your control and loyal to you. Your whole being. There either has to be no part of you that wants to help whatsoever, or you have to find those parts and smother them very, very quickly.”

“How am I supposed to do that? I am very good, but LaCroix has had centuries to practice his craft. Don’t you have some sort of object that will make it easier?” Des couldn’t stop herself from expressing her apprehension by leaning back and crossing her arms.

“I’m not a Danava, I’m afraid, so you’re going to have to put in the hard work,” the Primogen said, chuckling. “You _are_ right to be afraid, though. Dominate is a crutch for him, one that he’s used for a long time, and he’s become the one of the most skilled Dominators I’ve met. What’s more, it’s not easy to look into yourself that deeply, to have that much control. There’s something you need to remember: sometimes sheer agony and fear at your own emptiness can let you do things that your own will and pride can’t.” 

“I don’t understand what that means.” The Primogen, thought for a moment, and then slapped her hand on the desk as if she were about to surprise Des with a treat.

“I’ll show you, if you can keep up,” the Primogen said, looking into her eyes. The old woman’s eyes were vibrant green abysses, going from a dark forest ring to an emerald slope, all the way to a void. Zima came closer, though neither of them moved  Des was floating.

“Tell me about the worst thing you’ve ever done, dear,” commanded the Primogen. “Get if off your chest.” Suddenly, the entire tower was quaking in disgust, and everything inside her was trying to vomit it up, what she had done. Nines and the Anarchs were there, waiting for her, as were Jerome and his other girls, Heather and Yukie, Mercurio, all the eyeless blood dolls from the Hallowbrook Hotel, her parents, Samantha, her middle school literature teacher, and even Jesus. The whole world was waiting for her to purify herself. She had to do it.

“Once, when I was working for the L.A. Sun as an editor, one of my writers gave me a story about a criminal case. At the time, nothing was proven to link it to the prime suspect. It was juicy enough to give me the chance to really earn some respect, maybe even some real money for once.” The Primogen adjusted her choker, looking either slightly concerned or bored. “The writer asked me to let him publish before everything came out. The family caught wind somehow and begged the company not to do it. I published it anyway. None of it was true. The suspect committed suicide, and the writer was disgraced. I got out of it, though. Said the writer tricked me.” The Primogen curled up her lip in bemusement and disgust.

“Why Desdemona, did you even try to resist? Do you look up to me that much?”

“Not you,” Des said through clenched teeth. With a shock, she thought she might have given herself away then, but the Primogen took no notice.

“No matter. Let’s try something a little more relevant. Why are you _really_ doing all of this?” The Primogen asked. All of the strings inside her were catching the light, and she wanted to play the song to absolve herself. If she did, though, how well would Nines remember her?

“B-ecause. Because I need to. I need to p-pr….Nnnng….prove….that I can fix something. That I care.” After a minute or so of more stammering, the Primogen waved her hand, and she shut her mouth.

“Prove that _you_? You, you, you? Why, childe, that doesn’t sound very idealistic at all. Not uncommon by any means, but for the Anarch’s ‘poster girl?’ Tsk tsk.” Des felt a tear roll down her cheek. “Get your crying over with now, childe, and _really_ savor it, because afterwards I shall be very disappointed if you do it again. There’s nothing worse than one of us crying.”

“Yes. I understand now. You can stop,” said Des. The Primogen shook her head, smiling.

“Tell me where last you knew the Anarch command was.”

“N-none. None of your...your... Hhhhh….The Cha... .the…hhhhhhg… nowhere.” Close, too close. Nines could have been dead because of her, for the third time now, not to mention all the others. What part of her didn’t want to protect them? It was a good thing she was alone. She didn’t deserve to run with the rest of them.

“Give up and join me,” said the Primogen.

 _No_ , thought Desdemona. _No, no, no._ _I may just be in this for myself, apparently, but I’m still finishing this. I’m still going to try._ She couldn’t bring herself to say anything, but she stood up and bowed to Primogen Zima, who graciously nodded in return, as if her plan—or one of her plans—hadn’t just failed.

“Excellent. Be a good girl, now, and remember what we agreed.”

In the halls that gleamed even in the low light, the few Ventrue who weren’t out fighting looked through windows and open doors at her as she walked past, head held high. She still had enough Dignitas for _that_. They weren’t laughing or looking at her in disgust, as she expected. They looked almost respectful, or perhaps simply happy it hadn’t been them, though it was hard to tell in the partial light of the exit signs. Her cousins looked like red reflections of themselves in the dark.

“Wait,” said a voice behind her. It was Innocent. She turned. “Here. You dropped this, cousin.” He held out a pack of Anaconda ammunition in his hand. Desdemona took it with a murmur of thanks. Before she made it to the penthouse, one more magazine was slipped into her coat, along with a pack of blood, all with little whispers of “Yours, I believe,” or “Don’t leave your things lying about.” Before long, she had passed a well-lit meeting room behind, and was facing the door that led to the Prince’s penthouse.

 


	7. 4-4

The Sheriff was waiting for her, sharpening his sword. The only expression she would ever see him wear was the smile he wore then. It was a hopeful, hungry smile, or at least it would be if it reached his eyes. He threw down the whetstone and the towel he was using to grip the blade and rose. Desdemona had forgotten just how big he was: big enough to take up the entire gargantuan doorway to the Prince’s office, and big enough to make three of her, mass-wise.  

He raised his hands in some sort of greeting or supplication, and the high keening of bats came through the window. She didn’t wait to start shooting; she had already loaded a full magazine into her Steyr Aug. Desdemona released a burst of bullets at the Sheriff’s chest as she used up some blood on Fortitude and Presence. The Sheriff’s dead eyes registered no fear or awe in response. _Sometimes reactions to Presence are more subtle,_ she thought, desperately. Soon, swarms of the bats were flying above them in spirals, occasionally coming down to attack her, ineffectively.

The Sheriff was not ineffective, however. He teleported to the ground just behind her with enough force to crack and warp the marble floor like the surface of a pond when a stone ripples it. Before she could jump back, she was reeling to the side after being hit with the Sheriff’s sword. It had so much force at first that the sensation defied classification, it only demanded paralysis.

Still, she kept shooting, conceding a scream of rage and pain. It went on like this, her dodging kriegsmesser blows and shooting continuously, stopping only to reload or aim. Desdemona became used to his patterns of attack: teleport behind, swing hard, destabilize. She got hit less, and the Sheriff was starting to react to the damage. However, she’d used up several of her blood reserves already keeping up her disciplines and healing from the trauma to her body.  

Finally, the Sheriff teleported to the upstairs section of the antechamber and dropped his sword, kneeling to the ground. He seemed to be in pain, but Desdemona was skeptical that he was done. She started to walk forward to get in a good shooting position, but a fracture she hadn’t noticed made her leg bend to the side when she put weight on it.

Desdemona stumbled forward with a groan. When she looked up again, all she saw was a giant silver bat flying towards her, claws outstretched. Shock prevented her from defending herself when it speared her through the shoulders and used her to break through a window overlooking the city. It was absurd, but all Desdemona could think at the moment was _What? Isn’t he concerned about the Masquerade?_

The chiropteran monster dropped her down with what felt like the force of a meteorite. She used the momentum to roll herself lengthwise, distributing the force. Before she could reach the roof’s edge, she dug her adamantine nails into the concrete, creating a sound that almost matched the maddening warcries of the Sheriff.

Her automatic rifle was gone, no doubt to the street below. She unstrapped her sniper rifle from her back and searched for the monster, crouching behind a searchlight for cover. From the looks of it, it seemed the roof served as a kind of helicopter landing pad.

The Sheriff was nowhere to be seen. His leathery wingbeats were faint, but much closer was the sound of strange, loping footsteps with the added clack of nails. She was able to reassert her Presence just before the protean-changed Gangrel landed its blow. It backed away, whimpering wolfishly.

“Attack the others,” she hissed at it, feeling more vitality leave her. It whimpered again and went off to attack the two others loping up behind it. The wingbeats grew louder. A flash of metal, and a car crashed down next to her. _Oh God. He really can’t be doing this, can he?_ Desdemona thought when she noticed a pool of red expand from the driver’s side. It lapped at the toes of her shoes.

Anger gave her the certainty of lightning. She lay down her rifle and switched on the searchlight, moving at around as she scanned the sky for the monster. Luckily, he flew right into the path of the light. The Sheriff dropped immediately, scrabbling at his twisted face with his primary wing claws and writhing like a great larva.

Desdemona took up her rifle again and aimed it at his head. The claws danced frantically over where his frontal lobe was, but that didn’t save him. The first bullet, its cartridge as long as her finger, blew a red crater in the Sheriff’s head. Still, he moved and shrieked. The next one made him quieter, and the next two silenced him.

 

* * *

 

Nines didn’t laugh much, but he did then. It seemed like the last time he’d cracked up like that was when he was learning about his powers from his sire, Duster, before he’d bought it. Guilt was lurking in the back of his mind, but that was partially why he was laughing: those doubts he’d had about Des’s honesty were just so stupid!

His suspicion was warranted in the issue of her past mistakes, but, to be perfectly honest, most of the kindred he’d met deserved to die for some reason or another. If he made an exception with her, he would have to cut himself off from kindred society altogether.

Well, he might have learned that he was more prejudiced than he thought, but at least no one else was there to see him react like that to Des’s supposed betrayal. Des had also reminded him to think twice, too, which was good, and showed the Sheriff the meaning of "poetic justice." They’d all have to come up with a new nickname for her, ASAP.   

If she wasn’t dead, that is. That could also be what Penny was getting at. Nines quickly stopped laughing. Des hadn’t sounded so good during the fight, and her Primogen only gave her a few pointers on resisting Dominate right before she was to face the Prince. Nines thought of the sound that came from Des’s phone when the old hag told that Kuei-Jin to kill himself. He pressed play, feeling like the moth that got too close to the fire. He knew that recording would burn, somehow, but it was the only thing he had.

 

* * *

 

The chiropteran monstrosity that was the Sheriff lay dead, his carcass dissolving to ash like a burnt log prodded by a poker. Desdemona knew she wasn’t wasn’t too far removed from the same state.

When she saw the broken shards of the creamy marble floor of the Prince’s antechamber, crunched together into mountains and valleys, she felt the pain throughout her own body even more. Her skin was diamond, yes, Jerome had taught her that, but she was shattered all the same. It felt like she was about to break apart, and there was no more blood to heal herself. The air still tasted like ozone and turned-over grave earth, and there was no way to get rid of the taste but by moving on to the end.

Before he stepped into the familiar penthouse, an awful thought hit her. She checked her coat. Crossbow bolt with metal cap removed? Yes. Colt Anaconda? Yes. Most importantly, she felt Nine’s grenade.

The Prince had dragged the Sheriff’s discarded kriegsmesser in his office, and was looking at it almost tenderly, like it was the pieces of his broken power. Behind him, through the broken window, one of the searchlights she’d turned on the Sheriff bisected the night sky and the buildings that emerged from it.

“How could someone as low as you injure me? My Sheriff?”

“I’ll tell you, my Prince. Because the only tool you know how to use is force. Do you know that I have not met a single kindred in this city who is satisfied with your performance? It happened to be me because you gave me all the opportunities I needed. You turned me loose in a whole city of them, in fact. Even if your suicide missions had worked, however, it would have been someone else.” The Prince laughed as if her statement and the thoughts it provoked in him were an annoying distraction.

“Like sire, like childe. I should have killed you that night,” he said.

“My Prince, do you remember when I said I was _happy_ that you’d killed my sire? That I owed you a debt for freeing me from him? I wasn't lying. If you’d cared to pay attention, you could have known that. You could have made me loyal to you. I _wanted_ to be loyal to you, but you made yourself irreconcilable.”

“A fault you won’t develop when you become Prince, I presume. That’s the title you’re going for, correct? Ah, no, I forgot. You want to get by with nothing at all—nothing but my sarcophagus!”

“Your sarcophagus?” she laughed. “You really think we want that? Some of us have depth, you know.” Where before he was acting exhausted, Prince LaCroix now became agitated, throwing the kriegsmesser to the floor with a clang and gesturing emphatically.

“The sarcophagus is power, knowledge! Protection from the other kindred! That’s what every kindred wants, whether they know it or not! Your Rodriguez can make the rabble worship him to his little heart’s content and pretend to be one of them, but he uses it with alacrity. Oh yes! He uses one of the most ancient ploys, too: the role of the populist. The real salt-of-the-earth man who really _cares_ about the struggles of the ordinary.

“No one cares, little cousin, not really, not even if you think you yourself care. That Everyman act stops working as soon as you have to make hard decisions. That’s when a flock of mewling wretches that once swore their gratitude for your protection and generosity stab you in the back. Oh, no one _means_ for it to happen, but that’s just the way flies lay their eggs.” Here, the Prince lifted a trembling hand to the air and observed it, as if trying to grasp something. “The Camarilla claim to be the maestros of power. I joined believing that. But they don’t want to see the truth about what we need to do to survive. Against the Kuei-Jin, against the Sabbat, against...against _everything_!”

“Do you mean diablerie? Well, be my guest. Here’s the Key,” Desdemona said, tossing the velvet bag of pulverized stone to him. “I took it from Ming Xiao after I killed her.” The Prince caught it, his face opening with an almost childish joy.

“You’ve done all the work for me once again! So much to learn. I thought I lost it all, but no, here you’ve sailed on a Gehenna wind, bearing my salvation: the key to my future.” He took the bag and stuck his hand in immediately, searching around for something to grab onto. Desdemona could pinpoint the exact moment he realized there was nothing but dust. It almost seemed like he became even happier, as he began laughing. It was not a happy laugh, however, but one that sounded like sobbing and that twisted his face in a rictus of agony.

“Please compose yourself, Prince LaCroix. I want you to have some Dignitas when I finish this.” He ignored her for what seemed like several minutes, continuing his eerie cry-laughing. Then, he lunged at her with the dagger he was hiding in his suit jacket. It was a clumsy attack, but Desdemona still barely avoided it, stumbling to the side.

Her only gun that still had ammunition was the replacement Anaconda, so that was what she aimed at the Prince's knee when he wheeled around, revealing a face so filled with animal rage that she took a few steps back in surprise.

Her shot hit true, and he fell forward onto his hands with a howl more of anger than of pain. He crawled towards her, dagger abandoned. She stopped him with another bullet to the hand. There he stayed, shrieking and holding his hand to his chest, until some lucidity came back to him. Meanwhile, Desdemona reached into her coat and grabbed the crossbow bolt she’d kept from Mercurio, now free of its metal tip.

“Have some self-respect. You know how this is going to end,” she said, nudging his torso up with her boot. He nodded, closing his eyes and baring his chest. “Thank you. Now.” She raised the bolt in the air and found her target: the clavicle, behind which she could easily stab down to the heart.

Suddenly, Prince LaCroix jolted his face to look at something, smiling. Instinctively, she looked into his eyes to discern where he was looking. The Prince laughed.

“Drop the stake,” he commanded. His vines were searching through her now, she could tell, searching for a space. All of her different layers were separating like transparent anatomical plates fanning out on a light projector. In it, she could feel the part of her that wanted to give up, the same part Primogen Zima had wanted to access. _Die_ , she thought. _I don’t need you. In this moment, you don’t exist._

Her stake clattered to the ground.

“Good. Now, kneel.” Desdemona knelt next to where the stake had fallen. Prince LaCroix drew nearer to whisper in her ear, his fangs scraping her neck.

“You just couldn’t maintain it, could you? That is why—” He immediately stopped talking as his eyes rolled back in his head. The stake protruded from between his ribs.

“4-3,” Desdemona said into her receiver. “And 1-1 for the Prince and I.” She stood Prince LaCroix up and began dragging him to the doors. Just as she and the Prince descended the dais, the doors opened. A familiar set of high heels tapped out a familiar rhythm on the floor.  

“Hello, Primogen Zima. I take it you decided what to do with me,” Desdemona said. She proceeded to drag the Prince to one of the chairs near the huge (and frankly gaudy) fireplace.

“I have. The other Primogen and I have decided to let you live.” Desdemona froze as she straightened up. Hope was so alive in her chest that it felt like a heartbeat. She could find another way to repay Nines. She might even become Baron of Chinatown, and could keep mostly to herself. The Kuei-Jin would never gain a foothold there again, and Nines and the others could exist in relative peace. Yes, that would be acceptable. More than acceptable.

A gust of wind whistled past the windows to the city, and behind the buildings, the night was turning gravestone gray. Those hopeful thoughts left her when she looked back to Primogen Zima and remembered who she was, who they both were.

“On what conditions will you let me survive.” It was meant to come out as a question, but it didn’t. Desdemona clasped her hands very, very tightly behind her back and paced towards the Prince’s old desk.

“You will return to L.A. shortly after you’re done meeting with us as we leave—congratulations on the victory, by the way—and then you will become an excellent ambassador for us,” Primogen Zima said.

“And I will suddenly feel very devoted to one of you, maybe more than one. I might even fall in love. Am I right?” Desdemona said with a quiet, gentle voice, like she was talking to someone someone deathly ill. She’d reached the desk, then. She ran her fingers over the surface, smooth and dark as a lake.

“Devotion and love are wonderful emotions, some say the most fulfilling things anyone can experience. You will not be mishandled as long as I have anything to do with it. I guarantee you that you will receive everything you need, and that you’ll be on the _right side._  The winning side. The side that survives. Survival is the greatest justification to your enemies, the best way to show your righteousness.”

“I see,” Desdemona replied. “What will my love inspire me to do?” _You’re dead, you’re dead, you’re already dead. Nothing can touch you._

“Amazing things,” said Primogen Zima, as kind as an old auntie. “Things even you couldn’t imagine. Dear childe, Primogen Strauss is on his way here. You’ve overplayed yourself. You don’t have the strength left to fight either one of us. Come, rest. You’ve done a good job.”

Desdemona sighed and nodded. Force-fed love and treated like a pet again, possibly for the rest of her unlife. All she knew about L.A. and the kindred in it would be laid bare for them, sooner or later. Sooner, judging by how Zima had almost crushed her defense of the hotel base after just a few seconds.

Nines and the rest would know what happened because of her recorder, but, sooner or later, she would tell her new objects of affection about it. These Primogen were not stupid. It would not be easy or safe for the others to get her.

Desdemona waited for blood tears to come. They didn’t, just like at the execution and at the Sabbat ambush. She allowed herself a little surge of pride, and laughed bitterly.

“Do you know something? I knew this would happen. Ever since I failed to die before, I’ve felt wrong, somehow. Heavy, like I’m being pulled somewhere. Alone.”

“That’s not an uncommon—”

“I suppose it’s ultimately a good thing, really, though there are so many other things I want to fix,” she said. “Well, I went as far as I could, didn’t I? I followed this road to the end, like I said. See? I am as good as my word. Remember that, if nothing else.” Desdemona turned sideways to face one of the windows and plucked one last tool from her coat: Nines’ grenade. Its metal was cool and reassuring, even as it sent shockwaves of horror through her skin. She held it so the Primogen couldn’t see.

“We know. We’ve seen the work you’ve done on your own, and now you’ll have our full support,” said Zima, outdoing herself with her compassionate demeanor, though her brows showed confusion.

“This is 4-4. I’ll show them what it means to put me on a leash,” said Desdemona, pulling the pin from the grenade and holding it under her chin. The pin fell in an elegant arc and rang on the ground like a bell. “Be good.”

In the four seconds it took for the grenade to go off, the Primogen gasped, half in horror and half in admiration. A great sizzling, like boiling water, sounded from the antechamber, and running footsteps followed. The doors were blasted off their hinges as Strauss entered, gnashing his teeth.  

Desdemona did not hear, however, because she was lost in memory. She did not remember Samantha, when she was Embraced, or when she was about to be executed. That cold night outside of Strauss’s chantry, when in a burst of conviction she decided to join the Anarchs, was gone; the touch of Nines’s hand was shoved to the back of her mind. Even the fearful look her coworker had when he told her that the suspect had shot himself in the head, too, was suppressed.

She was playing with an old elementary school friend, forgotten until now, in an abandoned parking lot. The summer sun was making the air shimmer and dance. Cotton candy and butterfly wings were in the breeze, and the moon was already making an appearance in the afternoon sky. The Golden Hour.

“Why are you hogging the jumprope, Cady?” she said, petulantly. Cady stuck out her tongue as a response.  As she neared her record to date in Chili Pepper, Cady tripped and landed on her knees, exposed by her jean shorts. She lost no time in snatching the jumprope from Cady as tears welled up in her shocked eyes.

“Joanne, don’t be so mean!” the girl cried. “I’ll tell the teacher!” Joanne only laughed as she began trying to beat her own record. Cady burst into tears and screamed, clutching a knee. Joanne saw blood, cherry red, seep from between her fingers. As quickly as she took the rope, she dropped it and ran over to Cady.

“I’m sorry, Cady. Forgive me?” she mumbled into her shoulder as she hugged her. Cady sniffled and laughed.

“Of course I do! You’re the trying, aren’t you?” Joanne lied to the ground with a sigh of relief, spreading out to feel all of the scaly, hot asphalt as the cicadas cried and car engines rumbled in the distance. “ _Try,” she said_ , the girl thought. _Yes. If that’s what trying gets me,_ _I think I’ll always try._

 


	8. Uneven

Nines was eternally grateful for the solitude Penny gave him. That way, there was really no one to hear the full extent of his grief. He screamed and cried like an animal when he lost the courage to keep listening after the sound of the grenade. That last explosion, it was so loud, yet so distorted, like she was simultaneously being boiled and dragged to the bottom of the ocean. It almost sounded like there were ghosts hissing and screaming as she died.

If what she’d said was true about what she’d done, and his _abuela_ was right about Purgatory, she was in for even more pain that that. _God, have mercy on her. Let it be gentle. Have mercy on me for letting her go in alone. For what I thought about her._

It occurred to Nines, then, that he killed her a little when he suspected her of betrayal. Nines had thought her death would be referable to being a traitor, hadn’t he?

The memory of his thoughts was hazy, and slipped through his fingers when he tried to grab it, like trying to remember your childhood, or maybe a past life. It wouldn’t surprise him if he had thought that, that she would be better off dead. The heart of it was there in his memory, firm and proud. That cowardly, kerosene heart.

Her last words were tortuous. “4-4?” Always with that fucking score of favors, as if being decent to her was some fucking game to him. As if she wanted to be free of his kindness. As if she made that decision because of some damned sense of duty to him, or worse, because of some sense of pride or spite. That’s what someone who would cause someone to kill themselves over a few bucks and a promotion would do, right?

He knew there was more to it than that, but the the idea became his shadow, unscrewing his head and forcing its way inside. It made him angry at her, despite himself. Very, very angry. This anger, however frequent, was burned up almost instantly in his shock, like an ant in a furnace.

In the back of his mind, Nines wondered if that was how Des felt when she, herself, thought he was dead.

Nines didn’t remember driving back to the bar. Damsel, Jack, and Skelter were sitting upstairs and talking about the merits of Skelter’s “Tumbleweed” and “Crow Soldier” strategies when Nines drug himself back to the Last Round. Damsel immediately broke the table she was sitting at with Skelter and started screaming something about Cammies and drinking the entire Primogen council’s brain matter from their skulls.

Jack, on the other hand, looked surprised, but pleased, that she’d done it at all. He almost cackled, like he did when presented with most difficult situations, but thought better of it. Skelter took it the best of them, closing his eyes and nodding slowly. It made sense that he’d be more used to casualties of war. Nines couldn’t think of anything else to say, so he left them cold with their questions.

In the next few days, after the Anarchs were relatively sure they had L.A., Nines was offered the position of Baron of Downtown. He declined it. Instead, Skelter took it up, and Nines was named an advisor and ambassador for all the L.A. barons. With that sorted, they tried finding Strauss, Zima, or any other Primogen with every connection they had or could find. All they knew was that they probably hadn’t left the state—Des had the best word on the Camarilla.

The only thing they could really do was set up a little picture board for her, and other fallen Anarchs, upstairs in the Last Round.  There weren’t many pictures of her, but Nines found one on an old missing person flyer (“Call this number with any information! Nothing is too insignificant!”).

Turns out “Desdemona Temple” was really Joanne Mooney, at least in her breathing days. It made sense, taking a new name for a new unlife, but it sounded a lot less Ventrue. A lot less vampire, really, and a lot less her. He didn’t know how that made him feel, the fact he’d been calling her by a nickname even he hadn’t been trying to. Cheated out of the closeness he thought he had, maybe, but not in a way that made him resent her. At least, not a lot.

After the picture board came the graffiti. The first graffiti Des popped up in Hollywood, in the alley behind the Red Spot. Nines came across it while taking a shortcut to Abrams’ shop. It didn’t really look that realistic—more like an honest-to-goodness ghost than anything—but when it materialized from behind a dumpster, Nines was transfixed. The inconstant, faint street light made it look like it was moving. He ran up to it, savoring the anticipation of holding Des again, but tighter this time, and saw it was nothing but a flat imitation of the real thing. An orphaned shadow.

More appeared here and there: in the doorway next to the old Tremere chantry, in the alley behind Club Confession, on the side of Trip’s Pawn Shop, and all over the damn place in Chinatown. It almost became a local staple.

At first, he thought it was some cruel prank by those still loyal to the Camarilla, most likely the Nosferatu. The commanding or action-oriented poses they were drawn in suggested something different, however, that they were like lucky charms or guardians to the Anarchs. The damned could be so superstitious sometimes.

If it helped them, Nines couldn’t really bring himself to tell his people to stop. Nevertheless, they made him feel like he was walking around in some hellscape where everything was perfect except the thing he needed most, and every time he tried to get it, it was replaced with grave dirt and ash.

Skelter took note and tried to get most of them removed, but they proliferated like insects. Nines had to consider that the kine street artists were taking up the subject, as well. He couldn’t blame them.

When it really got under his skin, he would go out and pick a fight with one of his stronger friends, usually Skelter. That way, if he frenzied, no one would end up dying. He did frenzy, too. Skelter and the others stopped humoring him after the second time that happened. Nines would talk it out with Jack, but he had left LA, saying he needed to go somewhere still under the Camarilla’s boot.

Then, Nines figured the mortal patrons of the Last Round were always full of a dizzying amount of alcohol-infused blood. Why not take advantage of one of the key upsides of owning a bar? He did take advantage, and more than he’d like to admit. On one of these nights, he called the number on the old missing person poster.

“Hello, this is Samantha Holt,” said a tired, female voice.

“Hey. I’m calling about your flyers.” He heard a sharp intake of breath on the other end.

“Did you find her body? I only wanna hear about that from the police,” she said. Nines froze, unable to think of anything but where the ashes could be, and what the Camarilla might have done with them. “Hello? Are you going to say anything?”

“What makes you think she’s dead?” He didn’t mean to do it, but it came out sounding accusatory. Ridiculous, really. She was completely right.

“Look. It’s been almost a year since she vanished. People don’t tend to get found alive after that amount of time. And...and anyway, she wasn’t in the most healthy state of mind when I last saw her. I’ve gotten more than enough calls for one lifetime, all of them wastes of time and emotion. I even thought I saw her once, but all I was doing was bothering some poor woman who just wanted to go about her business.”

”I just—”

“And if this about that graffiti, I know. Believe me. If you really want to help, send me some poinsettias. We’re having a memorial service on the 14th.”

“I just wanted to talk about her.” At this, Samantha laughed sarcastically.

“Oh! Thank God! Some asshole drunk off his ass wants to talk about my dead friend!”

“Really! I met her at the theater. We talked about politics. Afterwards, she helped me get out of a tough spot,” he protested. Samantha said nothing, so he felt the need to go on. “Got into trouble with some...creditors. From a gang. She paid it off for me.” Samantha sighed sadly.

“That does sound a _bit_ like her, and too melodramatic to be a garden-variety lie. Credit where it’s due. I’ve never heard of you, though.”

“How would you? You don’t even know my name. I’m Armando Rodriguez,” he said, silently marveling at how strange it was to introduce himself like that. He was talking with one of Des’s live friends, though, so might as well use his living name.

“Oh. Still haven’t heard of you.”

“Yeah? I guess I’m not suitable for polite society. Why poinsettias?”

“Oh, she just liked them a lot for some reason. Even mixed a perfume for herself that smelled like she thought they would smell if they weren’t odorless,” she replied. Nines could tell she was smiling a little.

“I was _wondering_ where she was going with that eau-de-evergreen!” Samantha giggled.

“Sage and fig, with a bit of soil thrown in.”

“Soil? Like, dirt?”

“Yeah. It ‘grounds’ the smells, apparently. Wait, no, the ‘scent.’”

“Shee-it. Never would have guessed she’d wear dirt perfume,” he laughed. They laughed together. Nines couldn’t remember the last time he’d laughed with a kine, but it felt natural. Probably the buzz—his hand looked like it was shaking even as he rested it on the wall.

“I can’t believe I’m doing this, but do you want to come to the service? It’s at Sweetwater’s Funeral Home at 10.” _Now there’s an idea,_  Nines thought. It had been a while since he’d been to a real funeral. That might give him some closure, some chance to learn more about her.

“A.M.?” he asked.

“Well, yeah.” Of course. He should have known.

“‘Fraid not, kid. I will send flowers, though. Lots of them.” None of the florists were open for calls at night, so he found one that took online orders. He may have overdone it a little, but after Des’s confession to her Primogen, he was afraid not many people would show up to the memorial. He bought twelve poinsettias, eleven winter jasmines, and a bouquet with a dozen roses and forget-me-nots (probably from a frozen vault somewhere at this time of year).

Des would probably be embarrassed, and he was, too, if he was being honest, but it just seemed like the right thing to do. Or, at least what Des would do.

The same night, he went walking past her apartment complex. He didn’t think he meant to do it, it just sort of happened. Nines had never seen her apartment, nor did he know which number it was, but he found himself wanting to look around and see whether or not anyone had noticed she was gone.

The entrance room was surprisingly dingy, with not-quite-clean white walls and floors, a vending machine with flickering lights, and a set of dying tropical plants. The smell of old vomit and food scraps wafted from a mop bucket leaning on the back wall, and the aging security guard was napping on the red pleather sofas to the right of the entrance. The residents’ mailboxes were next to the elevator.

Each one had the apartment number on it, along with the last name and first initial of the resident. His eyes immediately searched for a Temple, or even a Mooney or Poe. None were there, but apartment 4’s box had a new name on it, written on some masking tape with Sharpie. Nines peeked it back. There was a light spot on the metal where a placard had been until recently. It was so light that he had to turn on the little Auspex he’d picked up to see it, but it was there. He didn’t know whether or not he should feel relieved that someone had noticed her absence, or sad that traces of her were gone.

Instead of deciding, he left. He quickened his pace towards the Empire Arms. Before he realized it, he ran into a tall black man in a suit.

“Oh, excuse me,” said the man in an African accent of some sort. Nines backed up, looking at him as if he were a character from a dream come to life. Nines knew that voice: a Ventrue from the recording. Innocent. He was here to maintain a nominal Ventrue power block in the city. Nines had seen him before, in some meetings, but he hadn’t connected the voice with the name and face. Now that he had, though, he now knew of another person who probably knew more about Des than he did. Another chance for closure? Sometimes God was merciful like that.

But, no, it didn’t feel right. This had to stop somewhere completely arbitrary, and he didn’t have the right to snoop around in her personal life—no matter what she’d said or what he wanted, they were not that close and never would be. Hell, he’d never known so much as Duster’s real name or exactly how he died, and that was the closest personal relationship a kindred can have. Asking for more with Des would be greedy. 

He needed to let her rest, Nines decided. It was over, all over, and trying to resurrect it would only bring more little deaths. This was a lesson he should have taken to heart, that had been pounded into him as indelibly as a tattoo. That was the thing with tattoos, he supposed. Everyone else notices them more than you do, after a while. 

“Are you alright?” asked Innocent. It was funny, he had no idea Nines knew who he was.

“No,” he replied simply, pushing past. He was a busy man, and he’d already given this too much of his time. In front of him, the road was just as dark as it was before.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The only thing I love as much as writing dialogue is critiques! If you liked this story, please tell my why! If you disliked it, please tell me why! If there's anything I can do to make it more engaging, for the love of art, please let me know.
> 
> In addition, I'd very much like to hear what you think the themes are.


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